Taxpayer Advocacy Panel

Welcome
Rousseau welcomed all participants and provided some information from the recent Joint Committee meeting such as the decision to have the 2008 TAP Annual Report completed sooner than last year’s. The 2007 Annual Report is still not finalized. He requested that the three VITA subcommittees provide their recommendations to the IRS by October.

Rousseau reminded the members that this year’s Annual Meeting will start on Tuesday, December 2nd and continue through Thursday, December 4th; Monday and Friday will be travel days except for those members who are elected committee chairs who will stay to attend the Chair Training on that Friday. All Area and Issue Committee chairs will attend the meeting to pass down their position to the incoming chairs. This year’s meeting will be a “working meeting” and will provide more meeting time for the Area Committees while the Issue Committees will meet only for half-a-day.

Rousseau also indicated that following NTA Nina Olson’s request, a new Issue Committee will be formed led by Area 5’s chair Ken Wright on the issue of Cancellation of Indebtedness.

Another decision made at the Joint Committee meeting was to use the TAP’s former members as a resource on future TAP input and projects.

Lastly, Rousseau informed the members that Cindy Jones from SPEC has invited the VITA members to participate in the BETA Testing on October 21st in Rome, GA. Knispel is awaiting approval of funds for travel and expenses for the Committee members to participate in this project.

Program Owner
Vickie Fairley, who is acting as our Committee’s Program Manager in Peggy Gavaghan’s absence, introduced herself briefly and indicated that she might have already met some of our members in Cincinnati during the Process Based Training (PBT) testing last year.

SPEC’s Plans
No one had questions for the Program Owner on SPEC’s future plans to use the TAP’s recommendations in their development of the TAB’s (Taxpayer Assistance Blueprint) Phase 2. See attached document.

Subcommittee Report-Out:

TAB – Collaboration Strategy
Davidson briefly reviewed this Subcommittee’s decisions made at their meeting in Atlanta. He indicated that he would be sharing the survey he created with the rest of the subcommittee members by July 11th for their review and input and thereafter he will also share it with the other Subcommittee in order to consolidate it with their own survey. The consolidated product will be distributed throughout the TAP for input and feedback.

Next Subcommittee meeting is Wednesday, July 16th at 1:00pm ET.

TAB – Broader Offering of Services
Criel reported that they are waiting for the Collaboration’s survey to finalize their work. In the meantime, they are creating an Exit Checklist to be used at VITA sites.

Next Meeting July 11th 12:00 Noon ET

Training VITA Volunteers
Criel discussed the Tax Wise BETA testing in which she participated last year.

2007 Recommendations
Colvin informed the members that she has been working with SPEC’s Cynthia McKinney on the recommendations the VITA Issue Committee made to the IRS in 2007. McKinney has actively been working with her staff on these recommendations and updating Colvin on their progress. Colvin said she’s very grateful for the SPEC’s staff collaboration with the TAP. She also indicated that SPEC is interested in their recommendation of adding a line to the Social Security Worksheet to capture Medicare Part D which can then be combined with Part B and deducted on the Schedule A.

Colvin also indicated that the SPEC staff will provide a written response to the VITA Committee on these recommendations by July 31st and have also offered to have a follow-up teleconference to discuss their response to our Committee.

Public Participation
None

Closing
Rousseau thanked everyone for all their hard work.

Attachment
SPEC’s Plans